Federation Commander

Itharus · Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 12:06 am Post subject: In search of some advice...

Hi, all. It's been a long time since I've been around here...

That said, I have a question:

Do you think this game is playable, blind?

I've been losing vision for a couple of years now, and I'm not sure how much longer I've got to keep it; so I was curious if anyone has any experience with blind people playing this game.

I'm not generally an optimistic person, but I figured I may as well ask -- not in my nature to give anything up without a fight.

Thanks Smile

Itharus · Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 3:48 pm Post subject:

Sooo, I'm guessing not Sad

mjwest · Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 5:55 pm Post subject:

Sorry, but I do not know if this has ever come up before.

Not being blind, nor having played against someone who is blind, I am not sure how to answer. Any board oriented game is highly visual, as much of the games information is designed to be taken in visually. It is not intuitive to just take two hex numbers and know their relationship to each other. (It can be learned, but must be done so deliberately.) There can be a lot of items on the board, and even people actually looking at the board can miss things. That all said, I imagine just about anything can be learned, if the desire and determination is there.

So, I do not think there were any answers, as I do not think anyone on this forum has tried that before.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

djdood · Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 9:40 pm Post subject:

I had a gentleman in one of my groups who was progressively losing his sight to a degenerative condition.

We used miniatures, so he didn't have issues seeing them (versus the counters, which he did).

Early-on we used the standard game components for markers, cards, etc.

As his vision became more of a hindrance for him, I made larger turn and slip markers in bold, contrasting colors, which made them easier for him to see against the black game boards.

He also made extensive use of ADB's great repository of ship cards in the Commander's Circle to print his own ship cards at a much-larger 11x17 size, which made the boxes large enough for him to easily see.

He had plans to use technological assistance to further enlarge images, but the group eventually petered-out (as they sometimes do).

I'd speculate that some of the groups that assist differently-abled videogamers (such as AbleGamers) may have tools and techniques that may enable something like VASSAL to "display" the current game-state via feel.
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Itharus · Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 9:51 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the replies!

I was actually wondering if the free-form movement rules (I know they exist for SFB, do they exist for FedCom as well?) might possibly be easier to handle than the hex grid non-visually, but I'm not sure yet. Miniatures would definitely be better than tokens.

With the grid numbers, I think it would be not too difficult to call the grids out - sort of like play by mail chess. It might be necessary to change how the grids are ordered (using a system like chess or battleship).

Hell it might be possible to find a hex-board with raised (embossed?) lines where the hex's dimensions are, which would be AMAZING. I suck at google though, so if it's out there it will probably take me 10 years to find it.

What really puts me at a loss though are the ship-cards. Those are very much... visual. Lots and lots of little boxes. I am not a very "arts and crafts" kind of person... I don't even know where to start on how to make that workable. Anyone have any ideas?

I've been asking around for ideas with Pathfinder (dungeons and dragons, basically) in other places and that made me think to come here. Currently waiting on someone I was talking to to tell me how they manage the character sheet... if it's good... I wonder if I could possibly reorder the ship cards to use a different format that is accessible with screenreader software?

Ugh, this is some hard stuff to deal with. Go run everyone! Do NOT get diabetes and start losing yer dang eyes -- you won't like it!

Jack Bohn · Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 1:57 pm Post subject:

At the risk of sounding silly, I was thinking of drilling a hole through each box of the ship card and marking their status with a peg. I don't know if there's a source for a large number of pegs; I imagine the best would be with a domed top and a thin stem, so possibly you could use thumbtacks.

I wonder if we wouldn't need custom ship cards. Rather than the boxes scattered around the ship's outline approximately where they "really" are, have them arranged in a hierarchy so they can be found easily. Say the outer ring of the shields, an inner ring of weapons in their firing arcs (360 degree ones right behind Forward Arc ones), then linearly, Forward Hull, control spaces, labs, Center Hull if any, tractors on one side, transporters on the other, shuttles, Aft Hull, then the power systems: batteries, APR, impulse and left, center, and right warp. (Hey! If you've got a kid's old Lite Brite set and print the ship cards "on the grid" for its pegs you've got a display that will attract eyes across a convention floor or the FLGS.)

Fed Con's "coin" based energy allocation is a good start, add SFBF's fire weapon cards, maybe with paperclips around the edges to indicate firing arcs.

Minis: the plastic ones will be less top-heavy than the metal ones, but they can probably be mounted closer to the bases to be even more stable. (Why are the minis as high as they are now? A 3-D effect to "pop" more on the gaming table? So proud of flying that they don't want to be mistaken for something that crawls on the ground?)
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-Jack

Itharus · Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 7:57 pm Post subject:

Punching holes and using pegs is actually pretty clever! Blow up a ship card enough and that might just work, especially if you managed to relabel it in braille or something. One of the downfalls of braille is that you can't really erase (and you have to write backwards, haha). So holes with pegs could really work there. Sadly I don't yet know braille.

I was also considering making a blind-friendly (ie: not pretty, graphical, or using merged boxes much) Excel sheet that encapsulates the information on a ship card. That could be used with screen reader software, and Excel itself could be used to track things -- you'd just have to convert boxes to numbers and the like and use the find function a lot. Once established, though, it would be easy to disseminate to anyone who needs it. It would be a monumental task to convert all those ships though! Yikes!

I dunno. I'm brainstorming mostly at this point. I won't begin training in how to use screenreaders and things like Excel while blind for a few months still. But I'll keep throwing out ideas here and hoping others do the same on the off chance that someone else with impaired vision notices this and can either chime in or find some useful ideas!

If I ever manage to make a system that works for it... I'll 100% share it. Also asking around on the forums for Pathfinder, D&D, and Traveller for playing while blind tips and tricks, because it occurs to me that RPGS and Table Top games might be the best bet that I will have aside from audiobooks to not drop dead of boredom when my remaining vision gives up the ghost, lol.

Thankfully I was born with a morbid sense of humor and can (sometimes) laugh about this still.

I actually think the PDF mega-rule book might be good for screen readers, but I can't check until I get my software (again, in a few months). It's mostly text with limited graphics, and it's VERY VERY well organized (like a technical manual!). So at least rules stand a fair chance at being good off the bat.

djdood · Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 8:02 pm Post subject:

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3828

You can download a lot of ship cards in the Commander's Circle.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Itharus · Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 7:19 pm Post subject:

ncrcalamine · Lieutenant Commander Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Posts: 272

Use a 2 x 6 egg carton for shields. And use pennies. left side is shields remaining right side is shields gone. Use a second egg carton for the ships systems. You will still need help from you opponent on facing etc.

as for pathfinder use the egg carton for hp and spells. play spontaneous spell casters. use the egg carton slots to track spells.

Itharus · Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 10:20 pm Post subject:

Huh. The egg carton idea also reminds me that I have an abacus floating around somewhere Smile

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3828

I carried and used an abacus in engineering university in the 70s.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Itharus · Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 1:41 am Post subject:

Ever use it for tracking things in SFB? If so, I'd love to hear the technique you used for it!

Itharus · Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 11:40 pm Post subject:

OK... I know for dang fact that I saw an alternative movement system for Star Fleet Battles if not Federation Commander SOMEWHERE when I firs started playing this games... but for the life of me I cannot find it in my rulebooks.

Does anyone know either a) what the system is called or b) where in the rulebooks it is?

This is driving me absolutely nuts. I could swear there was info with like... templates and what have you for using movement by measurement instead of hexes.

LOL, I just found the turn gagues under player resources but still can't find the dang rules...